


Imperfections

by kirschtrash



Series: Musical Musings [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drinking, Inspirational Speeches, Inspired by Music, Jean wearing leather-jackets and has a bad-boy vibe, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, M/M, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein-centric, Marco wearing weird clothes and pretty smiles, POV Jean Kirstein, Physics, Science, Smoking, Underage Smoking, a lot of it, enjoy this, just enjoy this, universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:17:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4794098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirschtrash/pseuds/kirschtrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've never believed the world to be "beautiful" - I've been through enough shit to believe that maybe all the world likes to do is push it's inhabitants deep into the dirt, enjoying the cruel feat.</p>
<p>All that flies out of the window when I coincidentally - or maybe purposefully - meet a freckled stranger in the dead of night; a man who loved the universe - a man, who wore an electric blue beanie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfections

**Author's Note:**

> So I woke up half of the night to write this orz This is just a writing exercise for me - just to try out some new things, testing the waters a little, I guess!  
> This series, "Musical Musings" will be filled with one-shots that revolve, are inspired or are based on some song - so I hope this idea works out!
> 
> Warning: there's smoking, discussed here, so just wanted to tell you all before-hand. Even so, I do not, in any way SUPPORT smoking - it is hazardous, and is bad for your health. Stay safe, my lovelies! <3

[Listen to this song for the feel](http://mp3.animespirit.ru/mp3/alexsolo/Shingeki%20no%20Kyojin/Shingeki%20no%20Kyojin%20Original%20Soundtrack%20II/05%20-%20Shingeki%20vc-pf20130218%20Kyojin.mp3)

 

* * *

 

 

_This fic is inspired by[this amazing art ](http://kvarcas.tumblr.com/post/100882488420/i-chew-gum-and-smoke-in-your-face-im-absurd)by [kvarcas on tumblr!](http://kvarcas.tumblr.com/)_

 

* * *

 

 

_**Imperfections** _

 

I am a bad person.

Well, that’s how my mother says it, anyway; those familiar words that used to sting like acid ages ago now don’t even make me flinch, as they roll off her swollen tongue, the heavy stench of shitty alcohol wafting throughout the house – too fucking pungent and persistent to be ignored.

“You’re a bad person,” she slurs, from where she sits on her couch. Her eyes are too busy following the trail of liquor she sloshes inside her over-sized coffee mug, not even bothering to make eye-contact with me. “Only bad boys go out at night, _Jeanbo_. Are you a bad boy?”

I know better than to fight back, to reply – to make her believe that I’m not, in fact, bad; to make her believe that all I need is some time away, where the air doesn’t reek of shitty beer; away from bare walls that once hung pictures of a happy, whole family – I need some place where I can stop existing for a while.

I know better than to reply. So, after making sure she has a bottle of water and medicine next to her, I shrug on my worn-out leather jacket, and leave the house quickly.

These nightly outings of mine have started to become a common thing. Ever since my mother lost control of her alcohol consumption – to the point she couldn’t even recognize her own son - I always tried seeking for moments where silence would prevail; where I didn’t have to hear my mother’s distant wails, muffled by empty walls. I sought for those little treasured times where I didn’t have to worry about my mother, my future – _my life_. I needed those moments where I could step out, dig my hands inside my pockets, and breathe the fresh air – free of the stink of vomit and stale drinks. I fucking needed it.

So yeah, if you put it that way – I guess I am a bad person.

The walk down the abandoned railway is slow, yet peaceful. By the time I stare ahead, I already see the beginnings of Stohess.  
Stohess is a city nearby where I live – but I don’t know why people even call it a city. Half of the time, it’s empty – with few cars and even fewer people; the most I’ve seen are people who want to run errands. Even now, as I enter the place, I see little to no people, the streets dark and eerily quiet. Someone could have taken this place as a desolate, abandoned ruin – a place of no use.

But it is here that I spend most of my nightly outings. This place is small, vacant, and silent – and I like it that way. My thighs start to burn from walking so much, but it’s worth it. Just as I enter the main street, I dig out a cigarette from my back pocket. It’s a little dented from how hurriedly I had stuffed it, with shaky fingers, but I don’t mind. It has the same taste it always does when I light it up swiftly, and breathe it in. I close my eyes, as I inhale, relishing the smoky sear against my throat. It usually stings a little too much for my liking, but I don’t complain – it helps keep my mind off of more painful things.

I am a bad person – smoking this way. But it’s either this, or the many _‘what if’s_ , _‘maybe’s_ , and regrets of not holding on to my family that hurt way more, things that I’ve tried so hard to suppress, just locking them up inside my chest brutally. It’s no difficult choice.  
  
I continue smoking away slowly, as I walk deeper into the night. Despite the burning sensation inside my chest, I sigh peacefully. This is the kind of silence I enjoy; silence that isn’t uncomfortable, or suffocating; a sense of quiet that lets me be at peace for once – like a tiny moment that the Universe has taken out for me, from within the folds of Time. Growing bored, I stare at the smoke I breathe out, the soft, whisper-subtle tendrils snake through the air, until it thins out, vanishing.

As the last wisps disappear, I notice that I have stopped.

And I also notice that I’m not the only one here.

To my left, I spot a lone, brick wall, with too many band posters stuck over one another, covering it all up. But my gaze lands on one person, leaning against it – a man, who wore an electric blue beanie.

I’d laugh at the sight, if it weren’t for his hands… clicking at something. _Click, click, click,_ it echoes, through the silence of the lane. _Click, click, click._ When I take two steps towards him, and squint through the fuzzy darkness, it is then that I notice the lighter in his hands, and the cigarette he’s trying to light.

“Um, could I help you with that?” I ask.

As the words reach the stranger, he looks up. Momentarily, his puzzled gaze fixes at me; I had thought that his beanie was bright – his eyes were _even_ brighter, a brown so sparkling and sharp it captivates me.

“Y-yeah,” the man replies, rather unsure, “ _Yeah_ , I mean – I’d like that.”

I smirk at his hesitance. With a few strides, I stand up to him, holding out my lighter. From here, I can also see the mass of freckles dusting across his cheeks, down his nose, a few trailing down his neck – though they finish underneath the pale, lilac sweater he wears. With one swift click, the lighter glows. The warm flame flickers as a soft wind begins to sigh through the streets.

With his dented cigarette dangling from his mouth, the stranger leans into the flame – a little dangerously so. The fiery light is now only a breath’s distance away from his face.

“Careful, you might burn,” I say before I could think.

The man only smiles, one edge of his mouth tugged to one side, baring rows of pearly white teeth - but he doesn’t reply. As his cigarette catches fire, the stranger leans away again. He lifts two fingers, and holds his smoke delicately, as he savors a drag. From the light of my flame, I see slight bruises flowering around his knuckles, soft tinges of purple and blue that one could have missed. He breathes out a puff of smoke softly. As the little cloud fades away, he sits down, leaning back against the wall again.

Strangely, I don’t move. I don’t walk on, and continue my nightly stroll.

Instead, I break the silence:

“So, uh, you live around here…?” I ask.

He shakes his head, as he puffs out another thick stream of grey smoke. He stays silent again, just staring ahead.

“Then…?” I urge on.

He cocks his head to one side, rolling his eyes, as he contemplates his answer. Ash falls down his cigarette, the red embers dying as they hit the pavement. It is then that he replies:

“Nowhere.”

_Nowhere?_

“Um, did you say 'nowhere'?” I ask, puzzled.

“Well, yeah; _nowhere_ ,” he agrees, as he smiles again – as if that explains everything.

I scoff. “Now you’re just screwing around, aren’t you?” I ask, as I sit down next to him – I don’t really have anything else to do anyway, and besides, my legs feel sore. The pavement beneath me is cold, but I adjust myself, leaning against the hard wall behind me.

Sitting and conversing with strangers at the dead of night – I must be _really_ bad.

The stranger, however, shakes his head in denial, the blue pompom on the top of his beanie shaking with each jerk of his neck.

“But I’m being honest here,” he reasons, in a voice gone husky from smoking too much. “One day I’m in one city, and the other day, I’m somewhere else. I’ve never belonged anywhere – so I guess I’m from… _nowhere_.”

Now I’m the one shaking my head. _This man is so strange_ , I think.

But I still say, “So you travel a lot?”

He nods at that, slipping the cigarette between his lips.

“And you?” he asks next.

I shake my head, as I tap ashes away from my smoke. “No, man. I’m not about all that – I can’t leave my mom alone. Night strolls like this are enough for me, I guess...”

The stranger silently nods, exhaling smoke out of his lungs, into the air. I do that same; I pull at my cigarette, letting the smoke linger inside me for a moment long, licking my insides. Just as the ashes make my eyes water, I let it out, letting my burnt breaths and sighs escape into the air, the grey, smokey curls disappearing into nothingness just as it lifts away.

After a long pause, the man next to me says:

“The stars sure look pretty tonight.”

It is then that I look up; and it is then that I notice the night sky.

There are so many; like tiny diamonds, the stars shine, speckled across the velvety blackness of night, shimmering brightly with each glance I spare. They crowd against each other, shining brighter than the sun does, on a cloudless day – except this holds a beauty daylight could never muster.

“It sucks that most of them are dead,” the stranger mutters.

I nod solemnly; _yeah_. I was taught that in school too, that most of the stars we see at night aren’t actually there; all we see is their dying lights that take millions of years to cross the expanse of the Universe, just to light up our night sky - just as it did right now.

I can’t contain the scoff that bubbles out of me.

“Dead things got a beauty of their own, don’t they?” I find myself saying.

He nods back.

I chance a glance at him, as he stares at the sky. Amidst his fascinated stare, there’s an underlying confusion he’s trying hard to suppress. He starts shaking his head, as he says, “So many of them must be dead already… It’s so strange…”

“Our world’s strange enough,” I say, with a bitter edge to it, as I taste the cruel honesty of that statement; I’m reminded of my father’s echoing steps as he left, and my mother’s sobs she tried so hard to suppress under pillows and booze – they reverberate within the recesses of my mind. I pull at my cigarette a little too harshly, letting the burning smoke dissolve all the toxicity of it away for a moment.

As if awoken from a deep thought, the man looks up at me, a finger rubbing against his chin.

“The world?” he asks, “Well, the world _is_ strange in that sense. It’s ways are so twisted and weird people mistake it for cruelty. But underneath all that, they forget the bigger picture, and once you do see it…” he trails away, laughing in mild amazement, as he ends:

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

I roll those words within my mind, letting them sink in. This world - it’s cruel, strange ways… is _beautiful_?

I shake my head in denial right away. “No, man,” I reason, “the world – or the Universe or any other bigger picture you're talking about just isn’t beautiful. It can’t be. The people who believe that are living in their imaginations; I mean, this entire rotten place really is a place where the broken and imperfect people like us get beat up – nothing else.”

I stick the last bit of my cigarette in my mouth, and breathe through it deeply. And whatever I just said is true. The world has never shown me anything _beautiful_ ; all it showed me were empty promises, broken hearts and shattered dreams, with no shred of hope or happiness to help soothe it all. All the Universe ever gave me was trouble and grief – never beauty. So yeah; the world is strange. But it isn’t beautiful – it can’t be. Dead things may show beauty – but evil things can’t.

As I press the butt of any cigarette against the pavement on which we sat, the man next to me sighs. When I turn to look at him, he shakes his head – just staring at me.

But the stranger asks: “Do you know how the Universe was made?”

I blink at him owlishly – positively confused. _What is he…?_

“W-what?” I stutter.

“I asked,” he echoes, “do you know how the Universe was made?”

I arch an eyebrow at him. _What game is he even playing…?_

“Uh, you mean the _Big Bang_ and everything…?”

He starts nodding vigorously, so that the pompom on his beanie started moving again – I suppress a giggle.

“Well," I start, "the Universe was at first nothing but a speck, I guess… and then one day it – it sorta decided to- to blow up? That’s when the Universe started expanding, and after some billion years or so the first stars and planets were made, and-“

At that, he raises a finger, silencing me.

He licks his cracked lips, as he says, “ _That_ is where you are wrong.”

I try to cut in, but he puts the last bit of his cigarette in his mouth, breathes in deeply, and stares at the stars, as he continues:

“When the Big Bang happened, the whole expanse was just filled with debris – the first few protons, neutrons and electrons, that made the first elements and all that,” he tells me, smoke falling out of his mouth as he sighs it away. “Seemingly, it was almost evenly spread out, staying like that for a couple of million years. But _something_ happened – something pushed all that debris to make the first stars, planets- you, and me… _everything_.”

“So what was it?” I ask tentatively, leaning towards him a little.

His deep gaze digs holes in my body, as he answers:

“An imperfection.”

I raise both my eyebrows in surprise.

“ _Imperfection_ …?”

“Yes, an imperfection – what Mother Nature, or some Bigger Force had tried oh-so-hard to spread out so evenly, happened to have a defect in it; a blind-spot, or a fault. There was that little imperfection within that perfect arrangement – I mean, it ended up doing something else. It created a difference in their distances, so that all that debris started clumping into bigger masses, and they ended up making the first stars of the Universe.”

I shake my head at the end of his account – not in denial, in utter surprise; at this man, I shake my head, who talked of the ways of the Universe with such fascination.

I find myself asking, “But can you call it a ‘ _fault_ ’ in the plan? I mean, for all we know, it must have been planned or something, right?”

The stranger shrugs, “Who knows? Maybe it was planned. But then, why not create the stars or planets since the beginning of Time? Isn’t it lesser work? Why go through all that trouble – why sort out everything so evenly only to fuck it up in the end? Why create such a perfect plan only to destroy it?”

I shake my head in confusion. “Then what does this all lead to?”

He smiles again. “It shows that the Universe is strange because it just might be imperfect itself. The stars, the Earth, you, me, everything – it all just may be the result of a few mistakes; an imperfection.”

“That’s even stranger, isn’t it?” I scoff, “that we were screwed up from the start?”

But now, the man laughs, his teeth glowing underneath the darkness.

“But isn’t _that_ beautiful?” is all he says.

Again, I’m at a loss of words, just staring at this man – this strange, _strange_ man.

But he continues: “I mean, we all call ourselves broken, lost, imperfect – and we are. But who knew that- that there is this slight possibility that the Universe was made of a mistake too; that the Universe might be imperfect – like us. I mean- it’s just crazy! And it’s because of that mistake, everything else came into being: the stars up above, galaxies, this _world_ – it’s all _real_ because of that effortless mistake.” He stands up, his arms outstretched, as he embraces the magnificence of the world he loved so much.

But he doesn’t stop there, his back towards me: “That’s not even the whole point. All _that_ eventually led to the creation of the Earth – of us, right? Just think about it; we were made because of a mistake. We are able to breathe because of that fuck-up. We have the ability to run, scream, jump, cry, love, break, hate – all by a slight imperfection. We can live, all because of an imperfection…”

He turns around, staring at me. His warm brown eyes meet mine, as he whispers in the silence of the night: “How is all that not _beautiful_?”

Once again, I’m at a fucking loss for words. My mouth slightly agape, I stare at the stars again. Now that this man told me the whole story, I can’t help but gasp at the sight; those stars… those stars that I see right now – are all the result of a possible mistake. All those stars that twinkle brightly, winking down at me… all were made by a fuck-up?

An imperfection?

_Why, isn’t_ that _… beautiful,_ I wonder.

I stand up, walking towards him. I stop beside him, our eyes still tracing the countless stars up above.

“Wow... that gives us broken people some hope, hm?” I ask.

“We all are broken in the end,” he says, “we all just need something to fill the emptiness we feel, so that we become perfect – it’s part of human nature, I guess. But then people get too lost in that emptiness, they don’t understand that maybe that imperfection… isn’t bad. Maybe there’s beauty in that.”

I breathe out a long, deep sigh. Just standing here, existing with this stranger next to me, it feels good. I feel the air blowing over us softly, I smell the traces of cigarette smoke it carried, and I behold the Universe, just as it existed in front of me. In that moment, for the first time in my life, I don’t hate it. I don’t blame it. For that moment, I relish it.

It’s broken too. The Universe might be imperfect itself – like us. Yet, from what I see, there is a bit of beauty beneath it all, though it gets hard to behold all of it with a bitter heart. But even so – if the Universe can have such beauty, why can’t we?

I turn to my left to look at this stranger again; this man who wore an electric blue beanie and a lilac sweater in the middle of summer; this man who found beauty within the ways of the world – this man, with whom I chanced upon my usually monotonous nightly strolls. I stare at this man, who is too busy staring up at the stars to notice me; this man, who made me realize that imperfection doesn’t have to be sad. It can be acceptable; it can be beautiful.

Before leaving, I say first:

“I, uh, didn’t catch your name. I’m Jean.”

He smiles his same contagious, pearly-bright smile.

“I’m Marco.”

As I walk out of Stohess, I look up again. The sky starts to lighten a little, as the beginnings of blue tinges bleed through the black velvety sky, some stars extinguishing to nothingness. Even so, I think about the Big Bang; how an accident – a possible mistake – brought about the creation of… everything; a coincidence.

Was me meeting Marco a chanced coincidence – or once again, just the strange ways of the Universe?

**Author's Note:**

> This theory that I have discussed here is from a documentary I saw long ago, and the rest that I have discussed (the "imperfection" and all) is purely based on *my interpretation* - it isn't rock-solid facts, so I hope it doesn't bother anyone!
> 
> Read and review if you can, please! Its my first try in something deep like this, so though it won't be perfect, I'd like to know how I did! Please and thankyou! ouo


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